


the archivist

by deadlybride



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Era, Established Relationship, M/M, Photography, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 00:39:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14297004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: Sam's been taking pictures for a long, long time. He has only one subject.





	the archivist

**Author's Note:**

> an idea taken from various pictures on tumblr, and encouraged by a few friends and anonymous cheerleaders

Sam won a disposable camera when he was a kid. A Kodak Funtime 35: bright yellow plastic, cheap. It was the prize for the girl and boy with the most Accelerated Reader points at Riverside Elementary. He treasured the stupid thing. Only fifteen shots, and as soon as he got it he knew he was going to have to make them count—not like Carly Petersen, who wasted her shots on stupid stuff, pictures of her friends and her shoes and even of Sam, who didn't smile when she shoved the camera in his face. She used the whole roll of film between the assembly and the end of the school day. Sam spent half his time peering through the viewfinder, not knowing how he could possibly choose.

Pictures weren't something their family did, really. They had some, of course, but they were mostly of the time—before. The single shot of the old family house, just a corner and a tree but it's the only way Sam ever knew what it looked like. Their mom, mysterious and golden-haired and smiling. Their dad, looking almost like a stranger. Dean. Sam wasn't really in them, other than as a wrinkle-faced baby he doesn't recognize. When he finally buckled and took a few pictures with that little disposable, it was like… claiming something. Staking a little flag in the uneven ground of his life. He pressed the shutter button and thought, _mine_.

That first camera was lost, before he could develop the pictures. Left at school, just once, and it disappeared. The second camera he bought cheap from the Kmart in Chillicothe with scraped together leftovers from his lunch money, hidden in his backpack from Dean and their dad both. He managed to develop that roll with another bit of hidden-away change, but in frenzied middle-of-the-night packing he left behind the slim packet of photos, tucked there between the mattress and the wall where only he could find it, or forget it. He'd laid out on the crappy single when he was alone in the apartment, looking at the pictures all colorful and glossy under the white glow of his flashlight. Autumn reflected in a lake, the Impala's hood spattered with leaves in the foreground. Dean, off in the distance looking at something Sam can't see, turned away so all that's left is the impressions of his cheekbone, the newly hard line of his jaw, his bare tanned arm, his black t-shirt an emptiness against the yellow house. It could've been a picture of a stranger, almost, but that Sam had spread his fingers over it enough that the surface had gone gently blurred. There was a big fight with their dad over that move, the morning after when they were already four hundred miles away and getting further, yelling and recrimination and Dean staring grim-faced out of the passenger window, even though Sam knew it was half his own fault. He didn't even like that town.

He only had a few cameras after that, and he was too chary of consequences to take pictures that meant anything. They used them for hunts, sometimes, and Dean would let Sam handle the camera if they had to take shots of tracks, or of sigils, while their dad forded ahead through the woods or in the dark of the cave and made sure nothing was waiting. Sam would watch through the viewfinder, sighting the world through the odd narrow view of the lens. Little stochastic details that he caught and captured, even if he didn't really press the shutter. A cluster of leaves in the sunlight. The crumbled edges where a great unnatural claw had pressed into stone. The broad-shouldered shadowed back of his dad, crouched over something, unknowable. Dean, grinning at his own jokes and looking back to make sure Sam was grinning, too. Dean, making a face at Sam, sticking out his tongue and crossing his eyes for the camera. Dean.

Sam couldn't afford a real camera, and he was uncomfortable enough with the stealing and lying his family constantly perpetrated that he couldn't acquire one by other means. He memorized, instead. He'd always had a head for detail. He got older and it got harder, to stay behind and hope that everyone was coming home, to think of the last time he'd seen them, to fix a final image in his head. Their dad, impatient and weary, eyes always looking ahead to the waiting highway. Dean, waving at Sam out the window, sending one last grin and shouting, _make sure you don't do all your homework, nerd!_ That was harder than going on the hunts himself, when he was old enough. When Dean wasn't looking sometimes Sam would hold up his hands, two Ls like a camera shutter, squaring details of him off to be remembered. His off-angle fingers where they'd been broken. The perfect curve of his ear, and the freckles that rose on it during sunny summers. His lips slack with sleep, damp shine of drool in the corner. When they lived in that craphole apartment in Bend, Oregon, and Sam slid the door to the bathroom open while Dean was showering and his head was bent under the spray so there's no way he could've heard, and they didn't have a shower curtain then after it got repurposed into a tarp, and so that meant Dean was bare and gleaming and pale in the thin morning light, and Sam took a shaky breath and then held up his hands, almost unthinking, framed that sight and pinned it behind his eyes.

When he left, he took one picture with him. His parents, together and smiling. He didn't have any others.

Jessica loved taking pictures. She had a beautiful Canon DSLR, a heavy black square thing with a 3.25 megapixel sensor that made Sam's jaw drop when she pulled it out and aimed it at him. She photographed everything and so he didn't really have to, not that he could have afforded something like that. She uploaded pictures to her computer and laughed at the dumb faces she'd catch him making. Some she'd upload to her Myspace; he asked her not to put up any of him and she rolled her eyes, making fun of him worrying about _online predators_ , but she didn't, so it was okay. Meant he didn't have any left of them together when she burned, and the apartment and her computer with all its backed up photos with her.

After. Dean, and the road, and a winter he barely slept through. The world settled into sharper lines, bleaker colors. More real and more awful, in equal measure, and yet—simple, in its way. He had a purpose, burned into him, something that made it easy to get up in the morning. Still. Looking for Dad, and the hunt that burned in his lungs and bled him, and Dean battered and almost lost, more fragile than Sam had realized he could be. All that time looking, when he was a kid, and somehow he never quite—got that. Dean had always seemed like a fixed point, a constant. It was the shuddering awareness of it being otherwise, after Dad died and Dean lived, and the knowledge of how easily those two facts could have been flipped, that drove Sam halfway into the bottle and then brought him to his knees next to the couch where Dean slept troubled at Bobby's, and let him stay Dean's hand when it came up already holding the knife—that put his other hand on Dean's cheek, Dean's eyes dark and startled in the moonlight spilling in through the filthy lace curtains—that made Sam's mouth urgent, his hands grasping too-tight at Dean's skin, barely healed from its bruises—that made him pull Dean on top of his body, both of them still half-dressed and sprawled on the floor, so he could feel the solid warm weight of him, Dean lifting up on one arm to stare shocked, his mouth shining wet in the barely-there light. Afterward, both of them still panting, Dean rolled onto his back and pressed his forearm over his eyes, said _shit, I can't believe—you're drunk, Sam, you're—_ and Sam rolled right back on top of him, slid a knee between Dean's and shoved his arm off so Dean had to look right at him, and he held Dean's face between his two palms and he said _I always meant it, I'll swear on anything but you gotta believe that, Dean, you can't not believe that, not now,_ with his voice all weird-sounding and his eyes hot. He was a little drunk. That didn't change a thing. Dean stared up at him, his arm still flung up above his head where Sam had shoved it, and then he slid it around Sam's shoulders, and he didn't smile because neither of them did for a while, that whole month, but he let Sam hold him and watched Sam right back, and that counted for something, then. Dean's face held between Sam's hands, his thumbs framing Dean's heavy beautiful eyes. _Click_ , Sam said, nonsensically, and when Dean frowned Sam just shook his head and then leaned in to kiss him, sour and fumbling, holding every single thing about that moment tight around his heart.

His Motorola, bought after the crash, had a 1.5 megapixel camera and a LED flash, and it wasn't great by any means but it was something. Easy to carry around, anyway. The memory card wasn’t huge considering the size of the picture files and so, again, it was like having that old disposable, a limited number of exposures he could use to capture frozen slices of his world. He had the option to back up, and there were a few that he did, moving them from the phone to his laptop—only Dean used the laptop, too, when he felt like it, and there were some things that Sam just…

Scarcity, restriction: it was awful but it was also a gift, in a way, because it made him really focus. He had to choose what could be kept. What mattered.

Over the years he lost laptops, and phones, and pictures with them. It was hard to take philosophically, considering everything else he was losing at the same time. Just meant he had to take more pictures, whenever he could. Stash them places only he could find. Those times (months, years) he didn't have Dean—no matter what happened, no matter if he thought the reasons were good—he had those captured moments, at least. Even soulless, robbed of sentiment, on the new phone he carried while he moved through a year of sleepless nights he downloaded a few pictures that he'd had saved in one of his old emails, kept them close at hand. It was just what he'd always done, and even like that he knew they were important, though the feeling didn't ache in his chest when he looked at them.

Dean, sitting on the Impala's hood with a laugh crinkling his eyes. Dean, asleep in lamplight in a motel not worth remembering, but for this. Dean at a diner table leaning over the obits with a pen between his teeth, in profile and unaware, alone, but in that moment wholly and entirely Sam's. There were some days when that was all Sam had, and he understands enough about the life he leads that he knows to take what he can get.

*

Just over seven hundred miles home from a hunt outside Green River, Utah, and Sam's sore from the nape of his neck all the way down to his ass. The driving hasn't helped after the hours of hunching awkwardly through the little copse of woods, making sure they took out the last of the hodags without being seen. Dean caught a slash from a sharp tail that almost gave Sam a heart attack before they were sure it hadn't severed a tendon or an artery, and he's been white-faced and bitching the whole drive home. The bandages on his thigh aren't soaked, but there's enough red still there that Sam hasn't bitched back, much, although he does put his foot down on the third run-through of the _Green River_ album, threatening to throw it out the window in the middle of Colorado on the 36, and finally Dean relents. "But just for that—" he says, and fumbles awkwardly down into the footwell to find the box of tapes. Sam can't see which one he slots in, eyes on the dark road, but then—

Sam sighs, the familiar riff filling the car. "Hair of the Dog?"

"I earned that song, Sammy," Dean says, sliding back into his splay in the passenger seat. When Sam glances over he's readjusting his leg, wincing. "And it was indeed a son of a bitch."

What little Sam can see of his face in the glow of passing headlights is pained, his eyes closed and tight. Sam looks back at the road. "It really was," he says, and figures that he can deal with a little Nazareth. If Dean does that thing where he goes all falsetto to sing along to Love Hurts, though, Sam won't be responsible for his actions.

They're back at the bunker around three in the morning. Sam parks in the garage and the sound of the engine turning off wakes Dean up, with a start. A slow maneuver out into the halls, both of them tired and Dean irritable from the pain, and Sam gets him slumped back onto his bed with some relief. "Jeans?" he asks, and Dean shakes his head and says, "Leave 'em," in a voice all rough with disuse, and flops back onto the memory foam without a bounce. Sam unlaces his boots and tugs them off and then goes to his own room, strips off boots and jeans and one shirt and goes straight to his belly on his familiar hard bed and drinks in the blessed quiet and lets all of his aches rise up, now that he's got the time for it.

Morning comes too soon, even if he turned off his alarm. He fumbles for his phone, face still half-mashed in the pillow, and it's already past eight. He allows himself a groan, muffled and quiet, and then rolls gingerly onto his back, muscles protesting. Not nearly as bad as thought it'd be, and he knows a little stretching and maybe a run, getting himself warmed up and moving, that'll fix it. His fan's turning slowly, just moving the air around, and he watches it for a while, his phone resting on his chest. Dean won't be awake, not for a couple of hours at least.

A shower, clean clothes. Sam starts the coffee. There's no movement, no sound other than the burble of the percolator, and he leaves the kitchen and makes his way down the east hall, silent in his socks. He only half-closed Dean's door last night and so it's silent, too, when he eases it open. Dean's snoring, that quiet nasal purr in the back of his throat that he does when he sleeps on his back. Doesn't look like he's moved, all night, the lamp still on next to his bed. Sam comes to the foot, looks him over. His color's better than it was last night, and the seepage in the bandages is no worse, the stain brown with age instead of fresh red. Dark smudges under his eyes, his eyelashes darker above them, and his mouth is slack, full, his face at ease. The amber light from the lamp sets his skin to a deeper gold and he's in that dark purple plaid Sam likes so well.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and thumbs the camera open, crouches just a little to get the right angle and captures it. He turned off the shutter noise the day he bought this phone, so it's quiet, and with twelve megapixels he gets the detail he wants. The image hovers on the screen and he looks at it for a long moment, checking the color, the light, the way Dean looks, alone and quiet on the bed. Almost like that night Sam brought him home, after Metatron, but for the flush of life in his cheeks. Sam licks his lips and saves the picture, then glances up at his real, breathing brother. Still sleeping. Sam thinks maybe he'll let him stay that way, for a while.

Dean limps around for a couple of days, and once Sam's sure there's no infection or need to re-do his stitches he has some fun with it. "Hey, you want to get me a beer?" he says, and when he looks up from his laptop he grins at the death-stare Dean's giving him.

"You know, I could just shoot you in your sleep," Dean says, foot propped up on a library chair. "No one would know. It's just you and me down here."

Sam scoffs, and stands. "Then who would you torture with seventies band trivia," he says, reasonably, and squeezes Dean's shoulder on the way to the kitchen. "And who'd look after you when you're all weak and pathetic?" he calls back, over his shoulder.

When Sam gets back Dean accepts the beer when it's handed to him, looking thoughtful. He hooks a finger into Sam's belt-loop before he can go back to his laptop and Sam stays in place agreeably enough, though he raises his eyebrows. Despite the leg, Dean's looking good—sleeping well, eating more-or-less decently, not drinking too much. Dean rubs his thumb over the line of Sam's hipbone, under his shirts, warm and slow. "You're on notice," he says, eventually, and Sam smiles. "Probation. The threat still stands."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sam says, almost serious, and lets Dean flick his side before he goes back to his laptop, back to the scanning project he's been working on for their library.

OCR scanning is a pain in the ass, but it's worth it. He's been taking pictures of relevant texts, slowly, when they've got downtime like this—one of them healing up, or just a lull between hunts. It's not ideal—if he had better tech, he'd be able to process their books a lot faster—but his cobbled-together version with phone pictures converted to PDF and pirated software works well enough for their purposes, most of the time. He's been working on it for almost two years now, off and on, since that history professor they consulted on a case gave him the idea. For the most part, Dean's left him to it, but with walking a challenge he's been hanging out in the library a lot, watching Netflix on his own laptop while Sam forges determinedly ahead.

"How are you not bored out of your skull," Dean says, almost sounding exasperated.

Four days since they got back and Sam's midway through scanning _Habentis Maleficia_ , taking pictures of the chapter on wolfsbane and its many uses. "Someday we're going to be in the middle of Tennessee and we're going to need this," Sam says, absently. Ah—his phone flashes a warning, memory card full, and he plugs it into his laptop to move the pictures over.

"Going through every page will take forever," Dean says. He leans over, pushing his own laptop out of the way, and taps the picture of the wolfsbane leaves. "And you're not going to have your computer at Dollywood, and then the werewolf will have eaten Dolly Parton's heart, and then what are we gonna do." He pauses, eyes going distant, and smiles. "Dolly. Mm."

Sam rolls his eyes. "If we're ever in the position to save Dolly Parton's… assets, I'm sure you'll throw yourself in front of the monster," he says, and ignores Dean's little _damn straight_ in favor of turning the laptop around, tapping the top of the screen. "Dropbox, dude. Cloud computing. I can access it anywhere."

Dean frowns, but he leans forward anyway, clicking through the files. Sometimes he acts dumb—a lot of the time, honestly, but Sam knows it's a show, for a bunch of reasons he doesn't want to look at too closely. He explains a little, about the character recognition software, how it can pick up keywords, and he can see Dean's mind working, eyes flicking back and forth between the images.

"By the time I'm done, I'm going to have a fully searchable database," Sam says. He leans back in his chair, gesturing at the full bookshelves all around them. "Just imagine, if the Letters had made it to the internet age."

Dean nods. "No more crappy mythology blogs with fifteen different versions of what the monster might be." He hums, frowning a little as he reads, and Sam smiles at him, unseen. He gets this furrow between his eyebrows when he's concentrating, his crow's feet crinkling. All those years etched into his face, a miracle for which Sam never stops sending up thanks.

His stomach gurgles, loud enough that Dean's eyes flick up to him. "All this librarian crap is hungry work, I guess," Dean says, grinning.

His watch says it's already two in the afternoon and breakfast was many hours and five cups of coffee ago. There's barely anything in the fridge, though, and he drops his head with a sigh. "Don't suppose you want to make the run into town," he says, already standing.

"Don’t forget the beer," Dean says, slouching back in his chair, and Sam rolls his eyes. "Oh, and popcorn!"

"Yeah, yeah," Sam says, and grabs the Impala's keys when Dean tosses them, and goes.

It's a quick drive into town, and a quicker trip through the tiny market. Milk and eggs, bread and ham and cheese, salad for Sam and stuff for burgers because Dean will want some kind of red meat. Bacon. Beer and popcorn, and Sam wonders as he's loading the few bags into the backseat if Dean's thinking about a movie night, maybe, finding something on Netflix in Sam's room and stretching out on the bed. They haven't done anything since they got back, Sam too leery of tearing the stitches in Dean's thigh, but it's been long enough that he should be knitting up nicely. He keeps the radio off on his way back from town, the window down to let in the grassy smell of the soy fields in spring, the Impala's engine reverberating like thunder on the empty roads, and it's a simple enough drive that he lets himself daydream, a little. Dean warm and solid against his side, something dumb and action-packed on the TV. Sliding his hand carefully to the inseam of Dean's jeans, feeling the solidity of the muscle there, the heat, and how Dean would grin, and pretend like he was annoyed, if Sam tugged him down to his back and loomed over him, the lamps all on so he could see every detail.

Round trip is only about twenty minutes, and a big part of that is edging politely around a tractor from one of their very few neighbors, that old guy who always gives the car a look of deep suspicion before they turn down onto the bunker's nearly private road. Sam parks up top, this time, and hefts the two big paper bags easily enough, though it's a bit of a fumble with the entrance door. "Back!" he says, over the creak, and heads down the stairs. Dean doesn't say anything back—bathroom, probably. Sam leaves the bags on the kitchen island, stashes the beer in the fridge, and leaves by the other hall to head up and see what Dean wants to do for lunch. His bedroom's empty, though, as is the bathroom, as is the shower room when Sam checks it, and he's frowning then because the bunker's silent, and it's—it's stupid to think that anything could have gotten in, it's a bunker for a reason, but he's walking faster as he comes down through the hall back to the library, and there—oh. Dean, sitting quiet at the library table, just where Sam left him.

"Dude, I thought—" Sam says, shaking his head. He comes up the two steps into the library. Should've just looked when he came through the war room, but Dean was so quiet and still he didn't even catch him out of the corner of his eye. "What do you want, we've got stuff for burgers, grilled cheese. Salad, if you don't think your digestive system would die of shock." Dean doesn't say anything and Sam frowns. "Hey. Dean."

Dean's eyes flick up to Sam's. He's… Sam doesn't know that look. Blank, almost, defensive. "Interesting stuff on here, Sam," he says. He's still on Sam's laptop, and Sam frowns, not sure why that tone—what, something in the lore, that wouldn't make sense—but then Dean picks up—"You left your phone," he says, waving it. It's still plugged into the laptop. Sam slams his hand down to his empty pocket, stupidly. Dean puts the phone back down on the table with exaggerated care. "I tried to transfer some of your pictures over. Thought I'd help."

Sam's stomach turns over. The horror of it freezes him in place, just for a second, Dean's eyes fixed on him. They drop back to the laptop and he taps the keyboard. Again. Sam's legs finally start working and he comes around the side of the table, hoping idiotically that it's anything else, anything, the pictures Sam's taken of wounds and bodies, the shots of sigils and ritual-circles, something safe. Dean pushes the laptop away, a few inches, and—there's one of Sam's pictures. Sam swallows. It's an old one, kind of. A few years back, before they'd discovered the bunker. Dean, still in his red-and-white makeup from that dumb cosplay thing they'd done with Charlie. He's still halfway in costume, laying back on the trunk of the Impala, glowing in the sun and smiling while they waited for Charlie to change so they could go to dinner. Sam remembers it like it was this morning. The sweat of the mock-battle, the chilly Michigan air. He'd just come back from returning his wooden sword to one of the computer nerds and seen Dean in stunning profile, and things were good between them again, at last, and he'd had his phone out and taken the picture before he could second-guess it. It had felt right, then.

"Quite a collection you got here," Dean says. His voice is low, scraped-out, and Sam closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Opens them again. Dean taps the arrow on the keyboard and the picture switches to—him naked, sprawled in blankets. That motel room in west Texas. Sam takes a step back, sits in one of the chairs at the next table. The next picture is Dean, again, of course. A longer shot, a glimpse through a cracked bathroom door, a clear shower curtain, just the familiar edge of a broad shoulder and strong thigh, his head bowed under the spray. Last year, when the threat of the Mark was still all Sam could think about, and he'd needed to pin something down, just for himself.

"What the hell, Sam," Dean says, and Sam ducks his head.

His hands are laced so tight together that the knuckles are white, he's hurting himself, and he has to take a deep breath to unclench. "You weren't—" He has to clear his throat, staring down at the wooden floor. "You weren't supposed to see those."

"Yeah, I got that," Dean says. Sam closes his eyes for another second, a hot flush prickling from his scalp down to his chest, and he's almost queasy but he forces himself to look up. Dean's not looking at the laptop, at least, but he's looking straight at Sam and that's almost worse. "So, what? Is this—like, your personal porno collection? Because, buddy, you could've asked."

There's an edge of humor to it, but Sam knows his brother, and it's fake, frail. He puts a hand over his mouth. "I'm sorry," he says, but Dean just scoffs and Sam looks again at the floor, his chest tight and full of awful.

"Sorry," Dean says, and closes the laptop with a click.

He doesn't sound mad, not exactly. Bewildered, maybe, and his ears are red, that way he gets when he's embarrassed. Sam swallows. He kept it hidden, all these years. He doesn't know how to say it.

Dean stares back at him, a long awful moment, before he shoves up to his feet, his face flinching a little when he puts pressure on his cut-up leg. "Uh, lunch. I'm—gonna make burgers."

"Okay," Sam says, throat tight, but Dean's just rolling along, walking out of the library and down into the war room, barely limping, saying, "You can have your rabbit food if you want, but I'm not making it for you, you gotta nibble those radishes on your own," and Sam says _okay_ again, the room empty and bright and warm around him, and when he hears the clatter of Dean moving around in the kitchen he puts his head down on the table, the mahogany cool against his flaming face, and he has no idea what to do, but he's pretty sure the happy dream of movie night is up in smoke, perhaps indefinitely.

*

They actually do watch a movie, that night. History of the World: Part I, one of the Mel Brooks collection they've seen least. Probably only ten or fifteen times. Sam sits rigid on the bed, doesn't complain, and Dean slides Sam's desk chair over and sits on it backwards, popcorn bowl between them in Dean's spot on the bed, and laughs a little harder than he should. Sam still smiles at his favorite part ( _…these fifteen—oy. Ten! Ten commandments!_ ), but the tightness in his chest isn't going away. His phone's sitting on his bedside table, by Dean's knee. He doesn't dare look at it, or at Dean really, but when the movie's over Dean says, "Man, that guy's a genius," like he always does, and then he—stands up, and he says, "Night, Sammy," like everything's _fine_ , and closes the door behind him (soft, not a slam), and Sam snatches up his phone and fumbles to the picture gallery and into the hidden (he thought!) folder, and—oh, thank god. They're still there. Dean didn't delete them, when he'd have had every right. He claps his phone to his chest and thunks his head back against the wall, his eyes screwed shut against the Netflix menu. Twenty years. He'd never gotten caught, not once.

He's not surprised when Dean comes up with a hunt, the next morning. Something that might be vampires outside of Fort Dodge and so it's six hours of driving, long empty fields and the music turned up loud enough that there's no point in talking. Sam doesn't know what he'd say, if he could. He stares out the window at the passing farms, the random dots of sheep on the horizon, clear spring air and budding leaves, and he thinks, he could say he's sorry, he could say it until his throat was hoarse and his lips cracked, but. But.

His phone sits square in his pocket, bulky. Funny, how they'd tried so long to make them as tiny as possible, and now it's a whole computer—a whole universe, tucked against his thigh. More powerful than what had sent the astronauts to the moon, and far more capable of fucking his life up, too. Dean's drumming along to the Black Album, his thumbs pattering on the base of the steering wheel. He's pretending like it's okay. He still hasn't blown up, still hasn't even really seemed angry, and Sam keeps waiting for it, because Dean pretending like something didn't happen never actually works for them. It always comes out.

It does turn out to be vamps, three of them, preying on people who shouldn't have been missed. Sam gets two and Dean gets the leader, and it's quick, easy, the bodies burning up in the filthy hovel they'd been squatting in and taking the hovel with it. They watch the flames for a while, making sure it won't spread before they call the fire department. "Well," Dean says, leaning against the Impala's hood. "That was… fast." Sam snorts, and Dean glances at him, just briefly. The fire's reflecting back against the planes of his face, setting his skin to amber and creating hollows and shadows that make him mysterious. Like some ancient thing, coming out of the dark. A perfect picture. Sam curls his hands into fists in his pockets, and goes silently when Dean says, "Come on, we're burning moonlight." Their doors slam in unison, the engine thrums to life. In silence, they cruise off into the night, Black Sabbath filling the space between them.

They're back in the bunker the next afternoon, after a stop in Omaha for ammo and reubens. Dean's trying to rank his top ten pizza places in America when they pull into the garage, and he's just running his mouth, can't decide whether that deep dish on the north side of Chicago or the white pie they had in St. Louis should get the number six slot. Noise, distraction. Sam nods, taking his share of the bullet boxes, says, "But what about that New York style we had in Trenton," to do his share here, too, and Dean rolls his eyes and says, "Are you kidding, that might make it into the top twenty, _maybe_." Bait, and Dean takes it gratefully, a grin tucked into the corner of his mouth as they come home, throwing the switches and filling the bunker with light.

Sam takes a shower alone, that night, hot and efficient. Dean's doing something to the Impala, an oil change or spark plugs or something, who knows. He's playing a record down in the garage, one of the old-timey things that survived down here, and the tinny echo of it follows Sam down the hall until he closes the door to his room. He stands there for a second, hair still wet, dripping in his towel. Dean's leg isn't bothering him at all, at this point, or at least not bad enough that he's limping. Almost two weeks since they've screwed around, and it's not like Sam expects it every night, or anything, they've never been like that with each other, not outside of those horrific weeks when one or both of them is expecting to die—when one of them definitely will—and yet still, he misses it. His own fault, but even so. He slides his hand down to the front of the towel, cupping the heavy shape of his balls, his dick where it's not entirely soft, and bites his lip.

His room's kind of cold, especially against his damp skin, but he lays out flat on the bed anyway, spreading out, eyes closed. He's swelling fast, cupped loose in his right hand while his left takes care of his balls, and he could grab his laptop maybe, find some porn, but his imagination has always served him better, anyway. He licks his palm, slides the wet over his head and down, down, to the base, and behind his eyes there's the usual blur of naked skin, people he's fucked or wanted to, but all these years of habit have made him predictable. Dean. He wraps his hand low, giving himself that almost-tight twist, and it's a fast flicker, behind his eyes, moving pictures. The round plush give of his ass, the thickness of his thighs. That smug grin he gets when he knows Sam wants him, and is pretending like he's going to play hard to get. The dense cluster of freckles on the tops of his shoulders when he's caught any amount of sun that Sam rubs his mouth against, that he tests with the blunt edge of teeth, and Dean makes that hitched sound in the back of his throat, his hips arching back against Sam's—ah, yeah, that's working, and Sam's jerking himself for real now, smear of slick leaking and making the glide a little easier, and he drags his thumb through his slit and down to rub wet and hard just under the head, makes his own hips squirm, and Dean says, "Damn, Sammy," appreciative, and Sam's eyes slam open and there's Dean, leaning in the doorway, watching him.

He scrambles to sitting, pops a thigh up to cover himself, and immediately feels like an idiot. "What, not anything I haven't seen before," Dean says, grinning, but there's something—off about it.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Sam says, knees drawing higher, and that makes Dean's grin slip away like it was never there. Sam closes his eyes.

"Kinda pot-kettle there, don't you think, Annie Liebovitz?"

He takes a deep breath, drops his chin against his chest. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Yeah," Dean says, and he's closer, now. There's a rattle, Sam's desk chair wheeled across the floor, and when he opens his eyes again Dean's straddling it, facing him with his arms crossed over the back. He looks Sam up and down and Sam's not prone to blushing, thought he was more comfortable with Dean than he is with anyone, but he can feel the heat rushing to his face, now. Dean's fully dressed, two shirts and jeans and still in his boots, even, and his eyes are very direct when they meet Sam's. "Come on," he says, voice lower. "I wanna see it."

Sam licks his lips. His dick's still heavy between his thighs, full and distracting. He slides his covering leg forward again and takes himself in hand, and Dean's eyes drop immediately, his lips parting. That's flattering, at least. "I don't, uh—" he says, thrown off. He doesn't make a show of this, doesn't even really know how. He drags up to the head, a slow stroke, and it feels good, of course it does, but Dean watching him from five feet away is—unnerving, to say the least.

"Dean," he says, and Dean only says, "Keep going, come on," all low and urgent, and so he closes his eyes, and does, pumping and steady, his free hand splayed awkwardly against his own stomach.

"God," he hears, and the creak of the chair. "How's that feel, good?" He grunts, and that seems to be sufficient. "What were you thinking about, slugger? Maxim's October cover girl?"

Sam lets out a huff. "Jesus, no," he says, and he really is blushing, now, his face patchy-hot all the way down to his throat. He's hard, but it feels—

"No?" Dean says. "Huh. Someone else, then, maybe." He's got that flirty edge to his voice, tipping over into sleazy, and Sam squeezes himself tight around the base, tips his head back and looks up at the ceiling, humiliated. "Maybe a little visual aid, huh?"

"No," Sam says, and it comes out harder than he thought it would. Jesus, his eyes are hot, a tingling surge rising up behind them, and he covers his face with his hand. "That's not—I don't do that, Dean, I'm not—"

He's so tangled up, almost angry but for the shame closing up his throat. His hand smells like spit and smeared come and it's gross, but he doesn't take it away, needing the cover, just for now.

There's a little pause, and the chair creaks again. "Hey," Dean says, quieter, and then the warm touch of his hand on Sam's forearm, dragging to his elbow. The bed sinks next to Sam's hip and he finally drops his hand, lets Dean pull it away, and Dean's close, brows knitted and his eyes searching Sam's face. Sam wants to push him away, wants to drag him closer, wants to flip him underneath Sam and just screw all of this away, but he doesn't know if he's got the right to that, to any of that, right now.

Dean's eyes flick back and forth between Sam's, and he bites his bottom lip before he drags his hand down Sam's chest, dragging heavy over his abs and down to where his dick's laying up hard against his belly. He plays his fingers over the head, soft and familiar, and Sam sucks in a breath, his left hand gripping Dean's shoulder for a second before he forces it to go light, undemanding. Dean frowns again at that, for some reason, but he wraps his hand around Sam anyway and oh, god, a decade's off-and-on practice and Dean knows exactly how to touch him, his hand firm and warm and tight. Sam's hips lift into it, a little surge, and Dean huffs, switches hands and ducks his head down to close his mouth over Sam's nipple, a flick of tongue and then a bite into his pec, quick and sharp so that Sam gasps, his hand barely having time to find the back of Dean's head before Dean laps over the toothmarks and looks up at him, a little smile tucked into the corner of his mouth. "Are you gonna kiss me," Dean says, dragging his thumb sloppy over the head of Sam's dick, "or do I have to do everything around here," and Sam's chest feels like it could crack open with relief but he curls in and catches Dean's mouth wide open, fills Dean with his tongue and bites at his lips, all that he'd been restraining broken loose in a second.

They end up on their sides, Dean's head pillowed on Sam's arm and their hands tangled and sloppy between them. Dean's jeans are barely shoved out of the way, his belt digging sharp into the edge of Sam's stomach, but it doesn't matter when his dick is grinding up against Sam's, finding the cut of his hip, hot and close. Sam spits into his hand, slicks Dean up a little more, and Dean whispers _I can't believe you hocked a loogie on me_ , so that Sam groan-laughs and pushes him onto his back and really gives it to him, leans all his weight into the welcoming press of Dean's hips and makes him come, smearing up his t-shirt and Sam's stomach, and then he jerks himself off for real, finally, Dean loose and grinning and not helping, not at all.

Afterward they wrestle Dean out of his clothes, drop his boots over the side of the bed, and then Sam scoops Dean up close to his chest, his dick pressing soft against the back of his thigh, his nose buried in the sweated-out eucalyptus-fresh of his hair. He drags a thumb over the soft line of Dean's chest, the gentle plush of it, and Dean just holds onto his forearm, lets him do what he wants. The lamp's still on and Sam shifts, resting his temple against the back of Dean's head and looking down the length of his body, admiring the smooth pale lines of him, the places where he's soft, how he's tinged gold.

It's long minutes of breathing, and quiet. Dean shifts, his back moving easy and comfortable against Sam's chest, and then he sighs, turning his face down to press his lips into Sam's bicep, tucked under his head. "Sorry," he says, muffled. "That was—"

Sam's already shaking his head. "Don't." Dean stops, but he doesn't turn around to look at Sam, either. Just as well. Just like Dean, too, to apologize when it's Sam who—he shakes his head, again, and kisses the back of Dean's neck, the spot under his ear. Sam drags his hand back over Dean's chest, pets down over his side to the curve of his hip where his leg's artlessly fallen forward, that perfect handhold. He draws a little circle with his thumb, light. "Can we just..."

Dean sets his teeth lightly in Sam's bicep and bites, just enough pressure to feel the mimed threat.

"Ow," Sam says, obliging, and feels Dean smile against his skin before Dean shifts and stretches out to flick off the lamp, throwing the room into almost-darkness with just the hallway lights filtering in through the grate in his door. Sam edges backwards, making what room he can, but Dean comes right in and fits himself against Sam's chest again, slinging his arm loosely around Sam's waist, their knees knocking together until Sam fits one between Dean's thighs. He closes his eyes tight, in the dark, puts his mouth against the top of Dean's head. He's going to be way too hot in about twenty minutes, and they're probably going to wake up edged as far away from each other as possible, stretching out in what little space these stupid small beds afford, but—that doesn't matter right now.

"Night, Sammy," Dean says, quiet against Sam's chest. Sam kisses the top of his head. Holds on.

*

There's a kind of normal, after that. Normal for them, anyway. Another hunt, this one so close to home they don’t even have to get a motel—just a poltergeist causing trouble at Fort Hays State, a long day but it barely causes a sweat. They stop in at that little place in Stockton on the way home for bad Kansas Mexican food, but Dean likes the guacamole, and his mouth still tastes a little like garlic when he takes Sam to bed that night.

Sam wakes up early, always does, and leaves Dean in bed and goes for his run through the warm morning, this spring coming hotter and earlier than they're used to. When he's showered and has coffee in hand he goes to the library and his scanning project is still sitting there, bookmarked pages and texts half-done. He stares at it, for a minute, and that's when Dean comes shuffling in, robed and yawning with his hair all flat on one side. "That coffee had better be for me," he says, voice a fucked-up growl.

"Get your own, lazy," Sam says, mildly. He's still frowning down at the table.

"I'm wounded," Dean says, but he scuffs through the library on the way to the kitchen anyway. He knocks Sam's shoulder gently as he goes by. "Don't burn a hole through the books, Sammy. How'd you get all your scanning done then, huh."

Sam's coffee is jostled but he doesn't spill a drop. Dean disappears down the steps toward the kitchen and Sam watches him go, then looks back at his books. Well. Time to move past it.

He finishes the chapter on wolfsbane, and sets the _Habentis Maleficia_ aside for a while to work on some of the old, old Men of Letters records, one of the boxes he found in Archive Room D that goes back to the 1860s. A lot of them are closed cases that had been shipped out to hunters at the time, but the descriptions of ghosts, old spellwork and rituals, it might come in handy, sometime. Dean's a little more interested in those, he's a sucker for stories about old hunters, but he's mostly been working on the Impala. Spring cleaning, he calls it. Sam doesn't think he's being avoided, Dean's been too warm and close at night lately for that, but maybe a little space doesn't hurt anything.

Things are okay. The world's not ending, at least not right away, and the cases they find aren't too hard. They lose a husband on a demon possession, but the wife and two kids live, and they both come out of it with nothing worse than cuts and bruises. Sam watches Dean carefully out of the corner of his eye as they drive home, not wanting to be caught staring, but he's all right, and that means Sam is, too. He's not taking anything for granted, not now, being careful like he hasn't felt the need to be in a while. Dean hasn't noticed, he doesn't think—he'd probably be getting an earful if Dean had—but it's good. He watched for so long, he forgot to watch himself, too. Doesn't hurt to be reminded.

It's only a few days after that last case. Dean goes out and grabs groceries, lets Sam stay in and work on the scanning project. It's tedious and painstaking archivist work, which means Dean has no interest, and Sam doesn't blame him. For his own part, it's kind of soothing. A good thing to be done, and a nice break in between all of the hunting and mayhem. He's still glad when Dean gets back, and there's lunch together, and then Dean starts looking for cases at the table next to Sam's and Sam keeps going, content in the quiet of working side by side, and then Dean disappears for a while and Sam goes to his room to grab his tablet, and there's a box on his desk.

He frowns, standing there in the doorway for a minute. It's a shipping box, Amazon, and Dean must be the author of it unless the bunker has its own account and has decided to buy them presents. Usually Dean doesn't order stuff, just leaves it to Sam. He takes a step back, looking down the empty hallway for a few seconds, and then shakes his head, goes back into his room. Whatever it is, Dean left it this way for a reason. He slices the tape with his pocketknife, opens the flap and pulls out the endless snake of packing paper, and then just—stares.

It's a Canon. He pulls the box out and shoves the packaging to the floor. DSLR, eighteen megapixels with a huge beautiful lens. 1080p video capability. He sets the box carefully on his desk, fumbles it open and peels away the Styrofoam. It's kind of small, in his hands, but heavy. So different to the so-light bulkiness of his phone. He thumbs the power button and it whirs elegantly to life, the screen brightening with the batteries already installed, and he stares through the screen at the crystal-clear crazy angle on his desk, his boot peeking into frame below, and then sits down in his desk chair and lets his chest cave in, just for a moment.

He takes his boots off so he can move more quietly and then goes to find Dean. The camera has a thirty-two gigabyte internal memory card with an additional thirty-two on the external. Plenty of room. Dean's not in the kitchen, not in the war room or library or garage, and Sam comes back around through the halls and listens a little harder and—oh.

The light in the shower room is bright white, the tile cream and black, the fixtures silver and chrome. Dean's standing under the second showerhead, his neck bent under the spray, his skin pinked up with the shower steaming up the room. The water's loud, strong pressure echoing off the tile all around, and Dean probably didn't hear the door. Sam licks his lips, and lifts the camera. Squared-off picture in the screen, but he looks through the viewfinder anyway, the camera cool against the edge of his cheek. Dean's legs, braced solid with the water puddling around his feet. _Click_. The curve of his ass, the dip of his lower back and the solid muscle around his spine, his skin flushed with heat. _Click_. His shoulders, and his bent head, and then—he lifts a hand, slicking his hair back from his forehead and then hooking it on the back of his neck, a gesture almost shy. His hand's broad, capable, any scars blotted safely away under the blur of the water. _Click_.

Dean rolls his head on his shoulders and then turns around, lifting his face up into the spray. Sam doesn't lower the camera. He changes the focus, reduces Dean to a more-private blur, the long line of him pinked-pale, just angles and lines. _Click._ That one might work in black and white, he thinks, and as he's looking at the screen he sees Dean's eyes slit open, just a little, before they slip closed and he fumbles for the soap on its stand. Sam looks over the top of the camera, his breath caught in his chest. Dean doesn't acknowledge him, only lathers the soap between his hands and then starts washing, slow. Teeth sunk into his bottom lip, Sam refocuses and takes another picture, and another, gets another angle. The soft easy way Dean runs a soapy hand down his hairless chest and stomach, slipping around his balls and dick, the bubbles catching in the close-trimmed pubes, wetted to dark. He's not hard, not really, but he's definitely not soft, and Sam feels his own body answering, his blood rising. It's humid in here, the steam from one of Dean's too-hot too-long showers spreading like a miasma, and Sam gets down on his knees on the colder tile and angles his camera up to catch Dean rinsing suds out of his hair and it's like—some otherworldly thing, a vision, only… it's not. Sam takes the picture and what's beautiful about it is that it's _Dean_. That familiar skin, the line of his jaw, his mouth parted under the water. His broad capable body, both muscular and soft. Not a model, chiseled to perfection.

Sam looks up from the camera. Dean's watching him, both hands hooked behind his neck. His dick's plumped up, darkening, and Dean licks his lips, bites them, then goes over to the other shower caddy where Sam's stuff is hanging untouched. Finds the conditioner. Sam's stomach clenches, low and hot, and he lifts the camera again in time to watch Dean brace an arm against the tile wall, standing just outside the spray with water gleaming all over his body, reaching back behind to smear slicked fingers against his hole. Christ. Sam blows out a shuddering breath, tries to make sure his hands are steady. _Click_. He gets to his feet and his dick is swelling the front of his jeans, full and getting more urgent. Dean's back arches and he twists in a second finger and Sam takes a picture, and Dean presses up closer to the tile wall and puts his shoulder and his red face against it and his eyes are scrunched closed, his brow tight with concentration, and Sam takes a picture, and Dean starts pumping his two fingers and his mouth parts and Sam steps closer, into the sloped shower pan so his feet and the bottom of his jeans get wet and he takes a picture of the rounded tight muscle of Dean's shoulder, and then Dean opens his eyes and says, "Jesus, Sammy," voice low, and Sam comes in and leans over his back and kisses him, pressed against the arch of him from hips to shoulders, his shirt soaked as he drinks in Dean's wet mouth, the camera held safely away from the spray, Dean's hand trapped between them.

"I can't believe you," Sam says, barely understandable against Dean's lips, and he pulls back just an inch to see Dean's heavy eyes, his bitten mouth. He drags his free hand down the wet line of Dean's spine, finds his working hand and wraps his hand around Dean's wrist. Dean blinks, slow, and Sam holds his eyes as he leans back and brings the camera between them, and Dean doesn't move beyond biting his lip again, and so Sam carefully holds the camera one-handed and focuses on Dean's hand tucked down, Sam's own bigger hand locked around his wrist, the muscle clenched in Dean's forearm as he works himself. _Click_.

"Sam," Dean says, and Sam pulls him upright by the shoulder and kisses him properly, turns him and pushes him back against the tile wall and presses them together hip to hip, Dean's dick fully-hard and crushed in against Sam's thigh, the camera held carefully against Sam's chest even as he keeps Dean close, and Sam says, "Please, can I—god, I want to, Dean, can I," and Dean groans and digs his hands into Sam's hair and says, "Since when do you _ask_ , duh, come on, come on—" and so then it's fumbling the shower off and not bothering with the towels and stumbling awkward down the hall to Dean's room because it's closer, and Dean nearly slipping and cracking his head open on the way but Sam catches him, and then Dean's room with the lamps already on and casting shadows and then Dean falls back onto the bed and scrambles for the lube they keep stashed in his nightstand while Sam strips off in record time, damp shirts tossed who knows where and his jeans shoved off so that when Dean pulls back triumphant with the lube Sam can fall right between his legs, where he belongs, and kiss him long and deep and slow, thorough, Dean making a surprised sound deep in his chest and then wrapping his arms around Sam's back, holding him close, his mouth giving and soft.

When Sam finally pulls back Dean's eyes are closed, his cheeks red. He spreads his hand on the side of Dean's face, drags a thumb over his lip, and Dean says, quiet, "Your show, Sam," and Sam slips his other hand down between them and finds Dean's dick still hard and jerks him root to hip, just to watch Dean shiver. Yeah. Yeah, he wants him like this, face to face, and he takes the lube from Dean and slicks himself up, pushes two testing fingers up inside Dean to make sure he's ready. Dean grunts and drags his legs wider, pulls one up higher so that it's almost pressed against his chest. Sam sucks in a breath and Dean opens his eyes, reads Sam's face in a second and says, _oh god_ , under his breath, but he stays still, face turned away and his cheeks and ears and throat flaming pink, and that lets Sam fumble over to the nightstand and grab the camera again with his clean right hand, find the right angle and take a picture— the leg folded up against his chest, the blush streaking all the way down to his nipple—and then Dean says _Sam_ and he drags his fingers out and puts the camera down and feeds his dick in, a long slow push all the way to the base, and oh god Dean's tight but his face as Sam pushes in, the way his lips part into that almost-surprise, eyes going distant as he's filled. That, god. That. Sam has never, ever needed a picture of that. Dean shoves a hand into Sam's hair, his favorite hold, and digs his other into Sam's bracing arm, and this is a night Sam's definitely going to end up with scratches but god it's worth it, it's worth it, and finally Dean groans aloud and says, "Get the lead out, Sam, jesus," on a thin breath and then that's Sam's cue to groan back and fuck in, Dean's thigh clenching up along his side and Dean clenching around him inside, too, and he leans in and breathes in Dean's hot clean smell and pushes, shoves in and in, and Dean meets him, rocking up, moaning in greedy relief.

After all these years they know each other's tells, they know how to drag each other to the cliff and over it, but even so Dean takes a while, now, and so Sam has to hold on, has to stave off the welcoming perfect drag in and out of him and the way he clutches Sam close and the _perfect_ noises he makes, the helpless high grunt when Sam nails him right _there_ and the way he finds the small of Sam's back and, yes, digs his nails in, goading—ah, and so Sam has to close his eyes and put his head down to Dean's shoulder and try to think, having to work harder because of the damn memory foam, hips pumping and Dean's breath coming fast against his ear, and he thinks about—oh, taking Dean from behind, slow, letting Dean work himself back against Sam's dick at whatever pace he wants and that way Sam would have both hands free for the camera, and he might take a picture of himself breaking Dean open, but he'd want more the drop of Dean's head between his shoulders, that lazy hedonistic chase for his own pleasure—or, oh fuck, Dean wrapped up in lace and silk and ribbon, that kink for panties he pretends to laugh off, his ass soft and pretty, maybe perched pale on the table in the library surrounded by richness and amber, yes, that, that—and Dean's got his hand clutched into Sam's shoulder, now, he's grunting out that low repeated moan that means—"Come on," Sam mumbles, lifting up on one arm and sliding a hand down between them to rub Dean's dick leaky and firm into his own belly, "come on, let me see it, come on," and Dean drops his head back and comes, shuddering, hips working up into Sam's—and so at last Sam sits up and catches Dean's hips in both hands and just nails him, Dean's body rippling-hot and clenching, perfect, the coiled-up pressure in the pit of Sam's stomach winding tighter and tighter, and finally Dean's hands find his hips, weak but there, and Dean murmurs _Sammy_ in a voice of pure rich contentment and Sam unloads, so strong and sharp he almost falls, has to catch himself on one hand over Dean as he keeps going, those last few thrusts stuttering and off-kilter, and when he finally opens his eyes Dean's eyes are closed, and he's smiling.

They lie together afterward for long minutes, and after the kissing's done, after Dean has held Sam selfishly close and Sam's not-that-subtly checked to make sure Dean's okay, like he always does when it's fast and hard like this—Dean flops over onto his back, stretches out and sighs at the ceiling. "I'm not gonna walk right for a day or so," he says, sounding pleased.

Sam snorts. "You should do some stretches every once in a while." He props his head on his hand, slips the other down to gently massage at the inside of Dean's thigh where the tendons are. "Limber up a little."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you," Dean says. Sam rolls his eyes. Dean tucks a hand behind his head and spreads his legs a little, lets Sam work. It's not really sexual, at this point, and Sam can't get it up again, not right away, but god. Dean's thighs are slick, with lube and with Sam, and they'll need to clean up so that Dean doesn't bitch about being disgusting in the morning, but—Sam switches to Dean's other thigh, rubbing slow firm circles. Not yet.

After a while Dean makes a low humming noise, and Sam looks up from his pleasant staring at Dean's soft flushed dick to see that he's smiling, again, face relaxed. He's so beautiful. Sam wipes his hand off on the sheets and carefully stretches across to the table for his new camera. It's quick, to focus in and take the picture.

This shutter's not silent. Dean opens his eyes and looks at Sam, raising his eyebrows. Sam lowers the camera, looks down at the screen.

"Am I gonna be looking at a lens every time I turn around?" Dean says. With the gift and everything that just happened, it shouldn't still be a surprise that he's not angry. "If so, I might have miscalculated with this thing."

"Don't flatter yourself," Sam says, dry, and Dean grins. Sam looks down at the camera again. "Thanks, man."

Dean nudges Sam with one knee. "You'd better say thank you, you have any idea how expensive those things are?" Sam huffs, but when he looks Dean's not really smiling. He's watching Sam again, assessing, and then his eyes drop to the camera. "I, uh. I'll admit, I was freaked at first. I guess I don't mind, though. Hell, not like it's anything you don't see on the regular anyway. Can't say I get it, though, Sammy."

"I know," Sam says. He rubs his thumb over the ridge of the lens. There was a picture he took, years ago. A handful of days before they put the plan to trap Lucifer into motion, and Sam knew in his gut what was going to happen, even if he hadn't yet had the courage to make Dean accept it. They'd been sleeping at Bobby's house—which meant that Dean was sleeping and Sam was staring up at the ceiling, heart racing so hard it felt like it'd just beat out and leave his body, and right then it would have been a relief. He got up and took two shots from Bobby's rotgut whiskey, and then he watched Dean frowning in his sleep for a few minutes, and found Bobby's old Polaroid camera and knelt down by Dean's side and put a soft hand on his chest, and watched his face settle, and took a picture like that. It was pretty bad—mostly dark, barely any detail beyond the curve of Dean's cheekbone in the moonlight, the edge of his lip. Sam kept it, though, tucked in the inside pocket of his jacket, and before he guzzled down two gallons of demon blood he stared at it for a long minute. A miracle that when Lucifer took his body he didn't tear it up; it was Sam's soulless self that lost it, later. Sam still misses it.

Dean's still watching him, patient and a little sleepy. They took the stitches out of Dean's leg last night and the skin's still ridged and rough, not whole yet. Sam touches one of the nearly-healed holes, shaking his head, and Dean catches his hand, drags it up and lays it on Dean's own chest, over his heart. Heat rises behind Sam's eyes, feeling the low reassuring thud under his palm, Dean's chest rising in an even rhythm. Dean gets a lot more than he likes to let on, thinks Sam.

"Just don't put me on your Myspace, okay, Sammy?" Dean says, thumb rubbing over the back of Sam's hand.

Sam laughs, and if it sounds a little wet then at least Dean doesn't mock him for it. He puts the camera safely on the nightstand and sinks down into the stupid memory foam mattress next to Dean, and leaves his hand exactly where it is. "Deal," he says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](http://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/172865993874/the-archivist)


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